Fuck.
Reece.
God, I had barely talked to him all week and even though we weren’t officially exclusive, I had pretty much physically and emotionally cheated on him.
Damn, I really needed to talk to him.
“I’m going out tonight and I need you to cover for me in case Mum or Dad decide to care for a change. I won’t be back until tomorrow night.”
“Ooooh,” Bea crooned while waggling her eyebrows. “Are you finally going to go all the way with Reece?”
I bit my lip, grateful beyond all belief that Reece had never pressured me to have sex with him. We’d done hand and mouth stuff—a lot—but we’d both hesitated about the final deal and until now, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d wanted to wait for the impossibility of giving it to Zeus.
Now that impossibility was on the verge of becoming a reality.
“Maybe.” I grinned at my little sister and pounced forward to pepper her face with kisses, loving the sound of her giggle in my ears and loving for the first time in my life, the possible future that was unrolling like a red carpet at my feet. “I’ve gotta take a shower and get ready.”
“Make sure you shave your legs. Nothing worse than a missed patch of stubble,” she called after me through my laughter as I bounded off the bed, rejuvenated by the plans for the night. “Even you can’t pull off Sasquatch legs.”
I flipped her the bird over my shoulder as I shut the bathroom door on her giggles.
“Louise, darling, there you are,” my mother cooed as I swept into the formal dining room, twenty minutes later than expected. “You’ll have to excuse our daughter, Javier. She is just so busy these days with her extracurriculars. You know, she’s a talented ballerina, an IB student, a cheerleader, a member of the school board—”
“Please, Mother, I’m sure Mr. Ventura doesn’t want a laundry list of my accomplishments. They must be nothing compared to his,” I interrupted with a sweet, subdued smile cast at my mother and another, more appropriately awed one aimed at the tall, immaculately groomed Mexican man beside her.
He clasped the ends of my fingers as I held my hand out for a handshake and brought them to a surprisingly full mouth. “Modest and beautiful. You have a rare breed here, Phillipa.”
“Thank you,” I said softly but I’d already taken the measure of this man in the expensive, custom-made suit and Italian loafers, with the slick hair and the gold ring on his pinky.
He was candy coated, poverty enrobed in class. It was obvious in his manner, in the shrewd almost feral look that made his brown eyes murkier than most; swamp water that held hidden depths, most of them filled with monsters.
I knew monsters, I’d had one as a guardian growing up, so I knew what to look for.
And Javier Ventura was one of them.
“She is lovely, isn’t she?” my mother agreed after taking a sip of her dry vodka martini with a lime twist.
I’d been making her that cocktail since I was a young girl. Whenever my father cut her off and the serving staff had to refuse to serve her, she used to send me into the alcohol closet for the copper cocktail shaker, a plump green fruit and a martini glass she made me chill in the fridge first.
It was one of the reasons Debra had been willing to keep me on at The Lotus. I made a mean martini.
“Smart as a whip too,” my dad said, rounding the table where he had stood with Mr. Warren, Headmaster Adams from Entrance Bay Academy, Harold Danner, the staff sergeant, and his handsome officer son, Lionel, all of whom were frequent guests in our house. “You should see her IQ scores, Javier. She gets it from me, of course.”
His laughter was meant to play his comment off as a joke, but I knew better and as I watched Javier smile thinly, I knew he realized it too.
“I’m sure,” he demurred before his eyes came back to me. “You must meet my wife, Irina. She’ll love you.”
As if on cue, a glamorous dark-haired, pale-skinned woman floated into the room, probably from the restroom. She wore a white dress that hugged her curves indecently and so many diamonds she looked like walking star shine.
Cue the trophy wife.
“Ah, you must be the Louise we hear so much about,” Irina purred as she glided forward to take my hands in hers. Her red lips blossomed into a beautiful smile. “Just lovely. You know, I mentor many young girls just like yourself. You must come to my studio some day and pose for me.”
“My wife is a skilled photographer and director back in Mexico,” Javier explained.
I pursed my lips but didn’t say anything even though their Mr. & Mrs. Smith perfectness was giving me the creeps.